THE LAY OF THE CID

Online Medieval and Classical Library Release #30

The following text was scanned from The Lay of the Cid, translated by R.
Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon, and published in Berkeley, California, by the
University of California Press in the year 1919 as part of the series entitled
Semicentennial Publications of the University of California: 1868-1918.

The Lay of the Cid is a translation of the Cantar del mio Cid, a poem
written in the mid-twelfth century about the Castilian Hero, Rodrigo Diaz de
Bivar, and relating events from his exile from Castile in 1081 until shortly
before his death in 1099. Although the Cid accomplished the remarkable feats of
capturing the rich Muslim kingdom of Valencia and holding it as his own, and
being the first of the Christian leaders to defeat the Almoravides, a warlike
band of zealots from North Africa, the poem concentrates upon his relationship
with King Alfonso VI of Leon-Castile. Like many feudal epics, The Lay of the
Cid portrays the breakdown of the vassal-lord relationship due to some
shortcoming of the lord, the manner in which the vassal attempts to deal with
this situation, and reaches a climax and resolution in a detailed account of a
formal trial.

The Cid became a universal hero to the Spanish, and his history was elaborated
by numerous ballads, legends, and other tales until the historical figure was
completely obscured by this fanciful literature. The Cid was rescued from
fiction by the Spanish Scholar Ramon Menendez Pidal, who devoted the entirety
of his long life to uncovering the historical Cid and in portraying the Spain
in which he lived.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

There are numerous translations of The Song of the Cid in English. The basic
work for understanding the historical background of the work is Ramon Menendez
Pidal (1869-1968), The Cid and his Spain Translated by Harold Sunderland
(London: F. Cass, 1971), while Colin Smith, The Making of the Poema de Mio Cid
(Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), and Richard
Fletcher, The quest for El Cid (New York: Knopf, 1990) offer more general,
but readable account. Guillen de Castro (1569-1631), The Youthful Deeds of the
Cid, Translated by Robert R. La Du, Luis Soto-Ruiz, and Giles A. Daeger (New
York: Exposition Press, 1969), and Robert Southey (1774-1843), The Spanish
ballads, and the Chronicle of the Cid (London: Warne, 1873), provide texts of
some of the later accretions to The Song of the Cid. El Cid produced
by
Samuel Bronston, directed by Anthony Mann, written by Frederic M. Frank &
Philip Yordan. (Tulsa, OK: distributed by United Entertainment, Inc., 1979) is
an epic film rendition. This score and libretto for the opera Il Cid by
Antonio Sacchini (1730-1786) has been published by Stainer and Bell (London:
1996), and Le Cid, the opera by Jules Massenet (1842-1912), is available from
CBS Records Masterworks (Austria: 1989)